The fact that one repudiates the 'right' of government (or its representatives) to levy taxes does not make you a 'cheat'. This is of course the dishonest propaganda of government. The fact that you hide your behaviour does not make you a cheat either. There is no shame in concealing your tax minimisation or 'avoidance' because ultimately the system is contrary to your moral rights. By that I mean - by an objective standard of rational debate - the government has no defensible reason for levying taxes upon you. You don't pay taxes because you believe they are legitimate; you pay them because you fear the consequences of renouncing taxation. They have all types of tricks to compel you to pay. These are the same methods of slave traders, dictators, bullies and other thugs. The difference is that they use extortion and arbitrary laws to force your compliance, and to give their acts the 'appearance of legitimacy'. You might look at the developing world and think that they are 'less civilised' because they have less order. The truth is - you are freer in the third world because the government cannot use financial assets as a threat to extort the compliance of people. That is why China and developing nations resorts to force because the poor have no financial assets to surrender. Thus the government can only threaten their lives to ensure compliance. So you see. You are living under a Hitler in contemporary society; its just that you dare not identify its nature. This makes the notion of 'freedom' you thought you had rather hollow doesn't it.
Don't get me wrong - few people fighting governments in any country are actually defenders of freedom. They are no less tyrannical than the governments they suppress them. i.e. In the Philippines the government imposes upon Muslims in Mindanao, and the politics of those Muslims suggests to me they are no greater advocates of freedom. So you repudiate both counter-parties. Better still...you just education them...or otherwise let them destroy themselves. Education is cheap. The best education we can give people is the consistency of a good role model. If we act with integrity, people are more likely to see our integrity, and when they see our practicality, they are more likely to respect us and move towards our value. It does not preclude them repudiating us, but we will be rewarded for our virtue, and will readily be able to defeat them. i.e. Just as the Japanese were moved by America's reform of their country in the post-WWII period. Sadly the US ruined that in later decades with its inconsistent foreign policy. It allowed the Japanese to justify worse.
People of course can repudiate taxes for different reasons, or refuse to pay for different reasons. From my perspective any reason is a good reason. A bad system ought to be rejected. Even if you pay, you ought to repudiate the system; otherwise you are allowing society to deteriorate into a more serious state of moral corruption. You think the current tax rate is reasonable...wait until the international standard rate is 70%. Why would that be the case? We have to compete with China or other emerging countries. I would suggest it could be 70% because:
1. Those governments will be aligned in their common goal of enslaving you as we move towards an international government
2. Those governments will be at war with China or India, which have emerged as powerful collectivist states because business and Western governments superficially perceived their 'love of money' as capitalist sentiments, when in fact it was never more than fascism.
So I suggest to you there is no such person as a tax cheat. The onus is upon government to provide a moral justification for taxation. They cannot do it. They will attempt some utilitarian argument about the 'common good'. That does not even hold up to scrutiny. It ought to be readily apparent that there is a necessary role for government, but that is not the same as defending taxation. There is every reason to welcome user-pay based charges for the services we use. You would be surprises just how little criminal activity there would be if there was no government taxation.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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